Springfield, MA -- The Winter of 1996-1997
was severely harsh on the urban forests of Southern New England, resulting
in widespread damage and loss of trees growing in many of the urban and
rural communities of the region. A severe snowstorm, accompanied by high
winds, in early December 1996, caused widespread damage of street, park,
and forested trees in most communities of Central and Western Massachusetts,
and Northern Connecticut. A second, larger storm dumped up to 36 inches
of wet, heavy snow on most of Massachusetts on March 31 - April 1, 1997.
This storm resulted in the second largest single snowfall in Boston's history,
and the fourth largest to affect most of Western Massachusetts. Damage
from this storm was widespread, severe, and extremely costly to many communities
in Massachusetts. Estimates of damage to trees from this storm range from
$12 - $15 million across Massachusetts. The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard
University, located in Boston, alone, estimated $ 2 million in damage to
the facility. The storm resulted in the loss of electricity to over 200,000
households. Some of these outages lasted for over five days. Telephone
and cable television service was also disrupted, with many households loosing
these services for up to two weeks. Many communities across the region
continue the clean-up of the winter damages today, and some estimate that
the damage to their urban forest populations was so great, that they may
never recover fully from the devastation.

Immediately following the December, 1996
storm, the USDA Forest Service Northeast Center for Urban and Community
Forestry at Umass Amherst was requested by the City of Springfield and
Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management to assist in responding
to the storm emergency. Due to the severe emergency situation, staff from
the Northeast Center agreed to work closely with officials to ensure immediate
response to the needs of communities. Springfield, the third largest city
in Massachusetts, with a population of 156,000 was particularly hard hit
by the storm, with damage to an estimated 60 percent of its street trees,
and loss of over 10 percent of the street tree population. Parks and recreation
areas were also severely affected by the storm, with the loss of many large
trees. An estimated $275,000 in damage to the public trees of Springfield
resulted from the December storm. The Northeast Center was asked by City
officials to assist in assessing the damage to the trees in the community
and to spearhead regional storm damage assessments from communities in
Western and Central Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Department of Environmental
Management also requested that the Northeast Center facilitate the delivery
of Preliminary Storm Damage Assessment (PDA) paperwork to the City Forester
in communities affected by the storm. The Northeast Center was able to
respond to both requests by providing assistance to the City of Springfield
in its storm damage assessment and sending PDA forms out to over 200 Massachusetts
communities.

As a result of the second storm, which
ended on April 1, 1997, the assistance of the Northeast Center for Urban
& Community Forestry was again requested to compile damage assessments
from the storm. Additionally, the City of Springfield was severely impacted
by the storm and requested the Center's assistance in developing a response
in order to request state reimbursement for the storm emergency. The Center
provided technical assistance to both requests, and agreed to work closely
with the City of Springfield in the development of long-range plans for
responding to storm emergencies, and to develop model procedures that can
be transferred to communities throughout the Northeast region.